So glad I could join you all for last weekends festivities. Next weekend and all the features coming up are only going to get better! I would love to do pre and post match interviews especially, and I'd be happy to volunteer for the responsibility. If anyone has any critsism or thoughts on my commentary, please let me know, I'm eager to improve my knowledge and skills to continue to entertain.

I would like to see more casters get on the scene, however, if only to spare Hugh's vocal cords. More casters would also be especially useful during a tournament, so there could be multiple games going on at once.

Leto and Zeikko have also done a great job, hope they continue to return.

Fantastic job casting gents, loved the streams. Had some fine action in this past weekends matches and I am very much looking forward to any changes you folks have planned for the cast, as, from the looks of the poll, will be excellent - keep up the bloody great work chaps!

Edit: Hugh we, the NS2 Community, demand your shirt and a plushie of both you, and Leto.

I love the top down view, would be nice to go to level view for some battles though. Game volume should be louder at level view too. Also, I don't know if it's just me, but Leto sounds like a professional commentator.

on the front page you listed the video as being "Here is a game from All-In v Darkside on Sunday, co-cast with DrLeto, to wet your appetite for more" but the video is of All-In VS Archea, not sure which one you meant it to be :x

Very good Job UWE. I like new infos at the top of screen and at the left side.But left side team info panel can be transparent, i think u gonna develop it soon. Also icons are really big. Small transparent icon of aliens and weapons can be good.

Also there should be replay of some event from a 3rd person view. e.g. When armory / base down, when a player kills more than 3 players in 10 seconds, when hive down, etc.

And much more team speaks please Drive us to the game stress

You made a big difference. You have a a game interviewwer engine also . I'm sure this will be perfect soon.

I liked the casts. Two casters is definitely better than solo casting as you get some varied input.

My two critiques:Your labeling needs some work. Constantly hearing D|S refered to as arc or exertus refered to as all-in (in casts and on stream // youtube video titles) is really confusing. I don't blame you as all casters go through this, specially when they have to cast 10 or 20 games for a few hours in a row. Definitely something to work on, though.

Watch the minimap!!!! While you're talking or showing how the skulks attacked, watch the minimap for action! The minimap will always tell you what's going on. There are 12 separate entities doing stuff in the game so it is impossible for one screen to capture all the action, but sometimes big things get missed. Use lulls to talk about strategy or recap why a team is in a good/bad position and be ready to cut yourself off to show an important battle. Or show the action while you talk about the previous battle if it's that urgent.

Would be easier to track the current score that way, i noticed that you had some problems remembering the score last weekend.

Many of the scores said in the cast were incorrect. Big factor in this was that there were two times the casters thought the wrong team won when there was a base trade going on. Or atleast they didn't have a consensus and a clear idea who won the game.

I think it would be good if spectators would also get aliens win / marines win ending music and icon to display the winner. This is especially true in a tight basetrade situation when CC and hive go down at exactly the same time. This causes alien player's client side kill icons to show that CC was destroyed before hive and marine's kill icons to show that hive was destroyed before CC. The ending screen seems to be triggered by the server though and is the final result of the game.

Very good Job UWE. I like new infos at the top of screen and at the left side.But left side team info panel can be transparent, i think u gonna develop it soon. Also icons are really big. Small transparent icon of aliens and weapons can be good.

UWE may be credited for creating this awesome game, but credits for the 'insight' skycam should be given to dghelneshi.

Very good Job UWE. I like new infos at the top of screen and at the left side.But left side team info panel can be transparent, i think u gonna develop it soon. Also icons are really big. Small transparent icon of aliens and weapons can be good.

Watch the minimap!!!! While you're talking or showing how the skulks attacked, watch the minimap for action! The minimap will always tell you what's going on. There are 12 separate entities doing stuff in the game so it is impossible for one screen to capture all the action, but sometimes big things get missed. Use lulls to talk about strategy or recap why a team is in a good/bad position and be ready to cut yourself off to show an important battle. Or show the action while you talk about the previous battle if it's that urgent.

This is especially true with base trades. Always keep an eye on the map to see what's going on. When I am casting, I'm always trying to watch something else than my co-caster if there's anything important happening, even though two guys commentating on what's actually on the stream is fine by itself. (I kind of screwed up completely on my cast with Hugh )The new tech point frames on the bottom part of the screen also make it much easier to follow base trades, even if you both watch the same base.

Concerning mixups, I've also heard a lot of "marine hive", "marines will now encounter the marines in XXX" and similar phrases. I know, it's very hard to stay concentrated, especially after 7 hours of casting.

casting was of high quality. drleto is the classic color commentator. hugh & leto neverr seemed to be at a loss for words.. the skycam is *much* improved now. games were interesting - good coordinated team play - rushes on both sides - classic marine tech up.

the caster opinions during the game were perfect for building in some excitement to the cast - 'team made bad decision, can they pull it out?' that kind of thing.

even with some of the fundamental gaps in the gameplay balance right now, I really enjoyed watching them.

I absolutely love how much these casts have taken off and also how much more footage there is to watch! Great job this last weekend, Leto and Zeikko always have great commentary and yes two people does make a huge difference during each game.

Skycam is only getting better and better and makes it so much easier to keep track, so major props! I cant wait to cast again myself, it just adds a whole new level of excitement for me to this game.

The insight / spectate mechanics are still kind of clumsy so you kind of have to give them some leeway in just dealing with the mechanics of it.

-Definitely be more aware of minimap.

-Take full advantage of the players overlay in insight. (e.g. Hugh caught a 5 lerk rush in All-In vs 420 only just when the lerks arrived at marine base, but it was apparent this was happening from player overlay for maybe 2 minutes. And leto did not seem to notice it at all.)

-As cool as it is to show the freelook while fighting fades or lerks. The health bars on player overlay mean a lot more than anything else. Maybe a compromise of just quickly switching back to skycam mode to view player health after a lerk or fade runs to give us a better idea of whats happening. Insight could just have player overlays available at all times as well, that would be nice.

-Also maybe make note of some major timings in 205 so you can just check up on aliens / marines to see how far along they are with those tech timings and then you can make really meaningful criticisms like "oh aliens got a late cara due to marine pressure on rts."

Some good timings to know are:

1:45-2:00 Alien rts should be good to go, or under heavy pressure at this point.*2:30-3:30 Carapace (Depending on whether 3-4-5 starting rts)*5:50 Augmentation complete (Can comment about use of mist perhaps, or just whether they used their mists efficiently to get lerks, fades, cara, maturity up simultaneously)

-A very b205 specific thing to note would be, if marines dont actually lose their first 2 rts by accidently building them before first two engagements are over. You could make note of that sort of thing since it costs marines nothing to drop ghost rts.

I think Hugh really does a great job of putting on a good show, and that is entertaining. However, for me what really sets some casts apart is an expert commentator like Zeikko, who is knee deep in competitive NS2. So, as much as I like the Hugh being awesome, please please always have a good competitive expert commentator if at all possible

Ps. Keep up the good work!

Pss. Moar minimap use plz!

"To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women." -Conan

Appreciate everyone's input on the subject of how well we did last weekend, and especially myself being my first weekend casting. I'm promising right now to work harder on watching the overall game and minimap, and make sure we bring the entire game to you, not just what the view is on at the time. There are a lot of things I know I need to work on as a broadcaster, so stay positive and keep the input flowing.

If you want to talk to me personally, here's some contact information below. I promise I'll read every email and every message I get. Thanks

Great job casting last weekend guys! We all really appreciate the hard work and effort put into it. At times it was a little confusing with a few verbal mistakes from the commentators, but every week the casts seem to be improving. Keep up the good work!

- With insight, NS2 now has an exceptionally good spectating mechanics - use them! Sooo many important things were missed. Keep an eye on growing hives, what's going on on the minimap and when important life forms / structures / tech are killed. Also I feel like the attention is biased towards marines. Not a single marine update was missed, ever - but on the alien side entire hive constructions, killed lerks/fades etc went unnoticed .Generally I feel like strategy/what's happening overall should be more emphasized than micro battles.Oh and also I don't think you should ever leave the overview mode. Especially now with the played health bars added, it's the only reasonable way to watch the game IMHO

- the drawing things can be good in theory, but I have yet to see a good use for them. Frankly they're really just annoying and add nothing to a cast. Same for showing your face. Consider that not everyone might be thrilled by seeing that as much as you are

- Cocasters are always good. casting alone is not an easy feat. Not sure about the interviews. Not really if they delay the games. Same thing about instant replay: Please don't overdo it, just too easy to miss things going on i fear.

Have to agree with Wey on the drawing. Initially I enjoyed the spectacle of it, now I just find it an annoying time out while the camera misses some other events. In theory, it can work. For example you've been using it to simplify the map control which might be useful to people who don't play the game or are unfamiliar with the map. However it needs to be used in bare moderation and highlight an important event, for me to find it enjoyable.